VOLLEYBALL

BEACH VOLLEYBALL

Record-breaking numbers for annual ‘Lokovolley’ youth tournament

Monday 13th of November 2017

Novosibirsk, Russia, November 13, 2017. The annual international youth Volleyball competition organised by Lokomotiv NOVOSIBIRSK, aka ‘Lokovolley’, is a truly special project. In terms of mass participation, this action, which started back in 2010, knows no equal across the globe.

‘Lokovolley’ takes place in 2017 for the eight straight season, involving more than 3,500 young players with four Federal Districts playing host to the early stages of the competition. The teams from the Amur and Nizhny Novgorod regions, Krasnoyarsk, and Novosibirsk, which has already won the competition seven times, eventually qualified for the finals. These will take place in the city of Saint Petersburg for the very first time and feature the hosts, plus the national teams of Serbia, Mongolia and Finland as well. Matches will take place at the local Volleyball Academy named after legendary Soviet coach Viacheslav Platonov from January 25 to 28, 2018. This year the tournament will celebrate the 74th anniversary since the end of the Siege of Leningrad. All participating teams will join a cultural programme, including visits to memorial places connected with the heroic defence of the city during World War II.

Back in 2010, more than 500 young Volleyball players representing four branches of the West Siberian Railway took part in the tournament organised for the first time by the All-Russian Volleyball Federation and the Volleyball club Lokomotiv NOVOSIBIRSK with the support of Russian Railways.

The following year, ‘Lokovolley’ did not involve Siberian teams only, but also participants from the Far Eastern Federal District. As many as 80 cities – from Omsk to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk – played host to ‘Lokovolley’ events. As a result, more than 1,500 young players born in 1996 and 1997 participated in the competition. The final stage became an international event, since next to the winners of the regional rounds teams from Kazakhstan and China joined the competition as well.

In 2012, teams from the Ural Federal District made their debut. From October to November, the preliminary stages of ‘Lokovolley’ took place in nine regions across the Russian Federation. More than 2,000 boys born in 1997 and 1998 vied for a spot in the final stage of the competition. The decisive matches took place in Novosibirsk, where Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia competed next to the winners of the preliminary rounds.

One year later, teams from the Volga Federal District joined the competition and the total number of participants exceeded 2,500. The final stage took place in Novosibirsk and the battle for the top honours involved teams from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and, for the first time, Ukraine too.

In 2014, ‘Lokovolley’ celebrated its fifth anniversary, and as a result, the finals took place in Moscow. The best teams from across Russia (the winners of the preliminary stages held in Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Yekaterinburg), as well as the national teams of Serbia, Bulgaria, Belarus and Kazakhstan travelled to the Russian capital. The Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Mr Nikolai Patrushev, the then CEV Senior Vice President Aleksandar Boričić, the President of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation, Mr Stanislav Shevchenko and the management of JSC Russian Railways attended the final match.

In 2015, the preliminary stages of ‘Lokovolley’ involved more than 2,500 participants across four districts of the Russian Federation. In the finals, held in Novosibirsk, Volleyball players from Novosibirsk, Blagoveshchensk, Ufa, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk and the youth national team of Serbia fought for the gold medal.

The same happened in 2016 when according to their results in the prelims, young men from Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Zelenogorsk and Ufa qualified to the final stage. The total number of participants stood at 2,700. Moscow hosted the finals at Druzhba sports hall with participation of the national teams of Bulgaria and Serbia.